Sun Sentinal: Artist Works from the Outside In

april 4th, 2012

Out of Place,” Christy Gast’s new show at Miami’s Gallery Diet, will feature burlap sculptures made in the artist’s studio. This is a departure from her two previous Miami shows, which featured video installations in which the artist explores public land and the meaning of specific landscapes.
“I like to spend time outside, away from people,” Gast says.

“Batty Cave,” filmed on a desert mountain in Utah, was based on the story of two men who built an ark in a mountain cave because they were expecting a flood of biblical proportions. The center screen of the three-channel video installation shows Gast’s hands arranging stones and scraps of rusted metal and glass to form a pictogram that tells the men’s story. “Herbert Hoover Dyke,” the other video installation, reveals Gast wearing a dark tuxedo jacket, white pants and a cowboy hat and tap-dancing on the 30-foot high berm that prevents Lake Okeechobee from flowing into the Everglades and suburban expanses.